Took a buddy out for a ride tonight and had an issue come up that has me a bit concerned.

Was out and went WOT in 2nd at around 8500 (have the ESS 8600 raised redline) I hit my up-shift paddle and nothing... Didn't up-shift, just banged off rev limit for a second. I got out of the gas and hit paddle multiple times, and it went up to 7, but while it did, the DCT bars dropped from full to 3 bars on my display automatically. Tried it one more time an hour or so later when i was driving home solo, and it did the same thing again but from the 3 to 4 shift. I have never had this issue or any issues with the tranny up until tonight. The only recent changes to the car have been the ESS 625 blower and threw on some Drag radials. Outside of that, nada. Spoke with Andrew @ AR design/Alpha motorsports and he recommended a fluid change in the DCT tomorrow and he is going to call Roman @ ESS and see if he has run into this with his Supercharged M3's Has anyone had these issues before?

That sucks. You know the saying... you gotta pay to play. I hope its something cheap to fix, but it sounds like you might have broke something.

I would think the ESS 625 + drag radials = a lot of stress on the drive train.

No error codes popped up?

Yea we aren't sure. Well, i haven't launched the car since the DR's/supercharger install. These were roll on throttles, plus im not making power like the majority of the 625 owners. Im 6000ft above sea level, so my uncorrected numbers were like 465hp i believe, so there shouldn't be issues with the DCT considering many people with 500+ uncorrected have beat the ever living shit out of their DCT's with no issues.

Yea we aren't sure. Well, i haven't launched the car since the DR's/supercharger install. These were roll on throttles, plus im not making power like the majority of the 625 owners. Im 6000ft above sea level, so my uncorrected numbers were like 465hp i believe, so there shouldn't be issues with the DCT considering many people with 500+ uncorrected have beat the ever living shit out of their DCT's with no issues.

Zero codes were thrown, no issues with car. Still ran strong, but needless to say, caused some concearn. I don't know if it has to do with the raised rev limit from ESS or if there may be a clutch issue or DCT issue. There is zero slip, and when im shifting at any other rpm there was no issues. I tried to replicate the issue a couple other times bringing her to between 8000-8200ish rpm and she went right into gear

Zero codes were thrown, no issues with car. Still ran strong, but needless to say, caused some concearn. I don't know if it has to do with the raised rev limit from ESS or if there may be a clutch issue or DCT issue. There is zero slip, and when im shifting at any other rpm there was no issues. I tried to replicate the issue a couple other times bringing her to between 8000-8200ish rpm and she went right into gear

Well that sounds promising. I would wait to see what Roman has to say. Hopefully its something easy to fix. Prayers for you!

OP... did you let the DCT warm up? I know that it needs to be warmed up before you romp on it or it could go into limp mode. That goes for non S/C'd M3's too that I have seen. Did you get the DCT software from ESS? I would recommend getting this as well.

Well, we were able to get ahold of Roman at ESS, and he had zero idea why we would have this issue and told us to email AJ, the ESS tuner, and had no luck. Brought her to the track for a test run to see if fluid change helped. First run tried regular launch control. Car bogged super hard but no issues shifting. Next run tried poor mans launch control. On the 1-2 shift it didnt up shift, got out of it and smacked her to3rd (dct bars went from 6 to3 again) then on the 2- 3shift same thing, wouldnt upshift. Got out of it and packed up for the evening. On the way home I tried a 1-2 shift at 7800 rpm. Car shifted, but engine light came on and a 7000 redline. Pulled over, stopped car and restart and it went back to normal, but a service engine soon light is now on. Andrew at AR pulling codes tomorrow to see whats up. Im staying out of throttle until we figure out the issue. I have zero desire to blow a DCT.

Well, we were able to get ahold of Roman at ESS, and he had zero idea why we would have this issue and told us to email AJ, the ESS tuner, and had no luck. Brought her to the track for a test run to see if fluid change helped. First run tried regular launch control. Car bogged super hard but no issues shifting. Next run tried poor mans launch control. On the 1-2 shift it didnt up shift, got out of it and smacked her to3rd (dct bars went from 6 to3 again) then on the 2- 3shift same thing, wouldnt upshift. Got out of it and packed up for the evening. On the way home I tried a 1-2 shift at 7800 rpm. Car shifted, but engine light came on and a 7000 redline. Pulled over, stopped car and restart and it went back to normal, but a service engine soon light is now on. Andrew at AR pulling codes tomorrow to see whats up. Im staying out of throttle until we figure out the issue. I have zero desire to blow a DCT.

Very interested to know what the engine faults are. There are a lot of torque management parameters in the DME which can affect DCT operation.

Well probably not worth testing now but would be interesting to see what happens if you used auto mode and redlined it. Auto mode isn't recommend on the blown cars as the clutch slips so it would have to be done with care - like just specifically 1st to 2nd or making sure the auto won't drop gears when WOT, just shift.

Well probably not worth testing now but would be interesting to see what happens if you used auto mode and redlined it. Auto mode isn't recommend on the blown cars as the clutch slips so it would have to be done with care - like just specifically 1st to 2nd or making sure the auto won't drop gears when WOT, just shift.

I didn't know that auto mode is not recommended on blown cars. Do clutches operate differently auto vs manual mode?